Claudia (The Vampire Chronicles)

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Claudia is a character in the novels Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, and The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice. She was made into a vampire as a child, so although her mind matures, she remains trapped in a child's body.

She was born in 1789. She was a six year old orphan when Louis de Pointe du Lac found her, in New Orleans in 1795, and fed from her. Lestat de Lioncourt found the two, and later gave Claudia his blood to drink, thus making her a vampire child. Louis was now bound to Lestat because of his love for Claudia. She was doomed to live forever in a child's body as her mind matured into that of an adult's. She soon grew to hate Lestat for what he had done to her. In the spring of 1860, sixty-five years after her making, she tried to kill him only to have him return three nights later. Louis then set fire to Lestat and the house they shared, escaping with Claudia to Europe.

In Paris, Louis and Claudia met Armand and the Théâtre des Vampires. Louis, blinded by his love for Armand, did not see Claudia's impending doom; it is in the theatre that Claudia meets her end when the vampire mummers of the theatre leave her in a brick-lined airshaft to perish in the sun.

In the 1994 movie adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, Claudia is portrayed by Kirsten Dunst, who was twelve years old then. Because a six-year-old was highly unlikely to understand and play a character with the necessary emotional depth, an older actress (Dunst) was used instead.

Claudia was given a two solos in the musical production of Lestat, one called "I Want More", her "plea" to Lestat and Louis that she was sick of being a sweet little girl, unmasking her dormant desire to hunt, and "I'll Never Have That Chance", a somber lament sung when the anti-heroine realizes she will never get to grow up and experience a normal life. She was portrayed by Allison Fischer and her performance is often regarded as the highlight of the show.

[edit] Background

During plague-torn New Orleans, just five years after Lestat's conversion of Louis into a vampire, Louis's conscience plagues him with questions of morality and damnability.

Torn with grief and annoyance of Lestat's presence, Louis goes for a guilt-driven, rain soaked walk through the plague-sealed houses near the wharf, where the plague had hit the strongest. In a shack, Louis had found Claudia trying to wake her mother, long since dead from plague and decaying, her father long since fled and leaving this child behind. Claudia was already beginning to show signs of the plague herself.

Louis took pity on the orphan and intended to take her to an orphanage. However, being starved down by a self-inflicted need to drink the blood of rats rather than humans, he starts to feed on her. Before he could finish, Lestat had derived his hiding and mocked him. Louis ran, leaving Lestat to either end her life in kindness or bring her over to the "dark gift." She is taken - somehow - to a hospital, and is then taken by Lestat, who tells Louis to finish her. Claudia is nearly drained, but Lestat pushes him away and offers his wrist to her. This is why, when Claudia later asks who made her, she is told they both did. Louis ended her mortal life and Lestat gave her a new one.

The three of them formed a "family" of sorts, with Claudia adopting Louis' love for books and morality, but also Lestat's fondness for playing with victims before their death. A memorable scene in both the novel and the film is Lestat and Claudia falling in love with a poor family, and feeding on them. This peace was to last approximately 65 years.

It is Claudia's maturity that brings the "family" to an end, as she discovers that she will never mature into a woman, and is trapped in a child's body, similar to a porcelain doll. Claudia then attempts to kill Lestat by allowing him to feast on two boys who appeared drunk and unconscious, but were dead and their blood was poisoned by the effects of laudenum, then by slicing his throat open. They dump his body in a swamp, only for him to return 3 nights later, scarred and hideous. After accidentally setting their flat alight, Louis and Claudia flee to Europe, in search of other vampires who can teach them of their true nature.

With little success, they arrive in Paris, and discover a "coven" of vampires, who pretend to be actors pretending to be vampires. Armand is the head of this coven, and falls in love with Louis. However, Claudia's existence is seen as an abomination. Armand allows his coven to kill her, along with Madeleine, a woman she had chosen to be her 'mother', by exposing them to direct sunlight in a sealed room, similar to the bottom of a well. Armand explains he did this out of love for Louis, and with selfish reasons.

Further, it is revealed within The Vampire Armand that Claudia had requested to be made a woman, and willing to be exposed to anything to allow this, no matter how torturous. In direct contrast to Interview with a Vampire, the reader is told that Claudia was decapitated willingly, as was the body of a young vampire woman, and an attempt was made by Armand to connect her head to this vampire's body, through the use of vampiric blood. However, Armand was not successful, so she was exposed to sunlight to hide this act from Louis, when he discovers her ashen and burnt body the following evening.

[edit] References

• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, published in 1976 by Alfred A. Knopf
• The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice, published in 1985 by Alfred A. Knopf
• The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice, published in 1988 by Alfred A. Knopf

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice
Interview with the Vampire | The Vampire Lestat | The Queen of the Damned | The Tale of the Body Thief | Memnoch the Devil The Vampire Armand | Merrick | Blood and Gold | Blackwood Farm | Blood Canticle
New Tales of the Vampires
Pandora | Vittorio the Vampire
Characters
Lestat | Gabrielle | Louis | Claudia | Armand | Magnus | Those Who Must Be Kept | Maharet and Mekare | Marius | Pandora Bianca | David | Jesse | Khayman | Daniel | Mael